Critical Role’s fourth campaign continues on its strong start, with DM Brennan Lee Mulligan and a cast of 13 players weaving through a dense storyline filled with emerging threats to a still disconnected cast of characters. Last week’s debut episode introduced audience members to the world of Araman through the death of Thjazi Fang, an adventurer turned criminal hanged on trumped-up charges. Critical Role’s cast were introduced one-by-one as bystanders to Thjazi’s funeral, all tied to the adventurer’s past either as old comrades, family, or foes.
This week’s episode began to tackle the question as to why Thjazi died. The opening episode established that Thjazi died on dubious charges, with a failed escape attempt thwarted by someone “on the inside.” However, who brought those trumped up charges and who betrayed him remained unclear. While we weren’t given explicit answers in this episode, several themes started to emerge that seemed to indicate that Thjazi may have been a victim of loftier political machinations.
Broadly speaking, the episode was divided into three broad storylines. The first follows Thjazi’s former comrades (he was the member of the Torn Banner, a mercenary group who fought on the losing side of the Falconer’s Rebellion) as they investigate how their escape plan went awry. The plan was supposed to utilize a magical glyph planted on Thjazi’s person that he’d use to Misty Step into a nearby cart that would deliver him to safety. However, the glyph was never delivered due to an attack on Thjazi’s longtime pixie partner Thimble (Laura Bailey) and was replaced with a decoy meant to trick Azune Nayar (Luis Carazo). Azune, Thimble, and their allies realized that two members of their conspiracy never arrived at their destination – the smuggler Casimir Gavendale and the getaway man Cyd Pridesire. As Casimir was a member of the Crow Keepers and crow feathers were found at Thjazi’s ransacked hideaway, the party suspects that Casimir may have betrayed them and stolen the Stone of Nightsong, an elven artifact that Thjazi and Thimble stole from Vaelus (Ashley Johnson). When a group goes to confront the Crow Keepers, hostilities erupt, setting up the first true combat of the campaign in the next episode.
The second storyline involves the machinations of the Sundered Houses, the noble houses of Dol-Makjar. Already major power players within the city, the Sundered Houses are quickly moving to consolidate power and remove potential obstacles in their path. Over the course of the episode, we learn that the Sundered Houses are closing branches of the city guard and replacing them with forces loyal to them and forcing the head of the magical Penteveral college to resign by threatening to revoke their license to practice magic on school grounds. House Tachonis is also actively seeking Occtis Tachonis (Alex Ward) for unknown reasons, with rival House Royce seeking the young necromancer mainly to thwart the powerful House. Sir Julien Davinos (Matt Mercer) is sent on a mission to retrieve Occtis, which seems to at least temporarily align him with the other cast members.
The final emerging storyline involves the remnants of the gods, killed seventy years before the start of the series. A strange silver box was retrieved by Thaisha Lloy (Aabria Iyengar) at Thjazi’s behest prior to his death. When opened at the funeral, a strange fragmented mask inside the box disappears in a swirling mist. Museum curator and Thjazi associate Bolaire (Taliesin Jaffe) takes the box and investigates alongside Murray Mag’Nesson (Marisha Ray). They discover that the box was the coffin for the celestial Olbalad, who served as the Angel of Death for the slain halfling god. Celestials are dangerous in the world of Araman – once the gods were killed, the celestials created by the god went feral and became terrible destructive forces across the land. One such celestial now resides in the bowels of House Halovar, where its blood is harvested to use as Filament for the Candescent Creed’s rituals. Wicander Halovar (Sam Riegel), the pure-hearted scion of the house is introduced to this angel at the end of the episode, with his grandmother introducing the creature as Wicander’s grandfather.
Although the amount of information that gets shoveled at both the players and the audience is overwhelming at times, I remain impressed by the steady pace of this campaign. Brennan Lee Mulligan runs a tight ship, keeping scenes moving along while also leaving proper space for his players to roleplay and explore the world. One contrast between his style and Matt Mercer’s is that Mulligan will often drop players into various scenes instead of allowing them total freedom to dictate what their characters do or where they travel to. This requires a lot of trust between the players and the DM, but it also makes the show feel much tighter than some of the meandering episodes of Critical Role’s past campaigns. I wonder how much of this is a consequence of needing to juggle screen time for 13 players and how much of this will be a natural hallmark of Critical Role’s fourth campaign.
Two episodes in and Critical Role’s fourth campaign still has me hooked. There are still plenty of pieces that haven’t come together and I’m curious as to how the three loosely-defined adventuring groups will eventually come together and what their initial quests will be. This may feel like a slow burn, although we’ll apparently gain some clarity over the next two episodes.
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